JPH10289247A - Document retrieving method and system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a document retrieving method and system which retrieve even when a file name and a keyword are not clear and also retrieve with non-character information in retrieving mass document. SOLUTION: A client terminal 10 partially or totally inputs document to be retrieved (S1), retrieval information is extracted from inputted document information (S2), the retrieval information is transferred to a server 20 through a communication line (S3), the server 20 side retrieves document that is previously accumulated based on the received retrieval information (S4) and transfers it to the terminal 10 (S5), and the terminal 10 shows the document of a retrieval result (S6).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document search method and system, and more particularly, to a method of inputting a part or all of a document from a client terminal, generating search information from input information, and based on the input information, a server in accordance with the document. The present invention relates to a document search method and a document search system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional document search system,
A file name is assigned to each document and stored in a database or the like. When searching, a file name given in advance or a specific keyword included in the document can be specified.
The document is searched by collation with a preset keyword or full-text search.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method, the number of characters is limited in a file name, a keyword, or the like. Not
There have been problems such as forgetting the file name or keyword, and furthermore, the file name or keyword given by another person is almost unknown.

In the case of full-text search using an arbitrary character string, there is a problem that a character string must be input from a client terminal using a keyboard or the like.
There is a problem that it is impossible to search from non-character information such as a figure included in a document.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and has been made in view of the above circumstances. It is an object to provide a search method and system.

[0006]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the principle of the present invention. According to the present invention, a part or all of a document to be searched is input at the client terminal 10 (step S1), search information is extracted from the input document information (step S2), and the search information is transmitted to a server via a communication line. 20 (step S3), the server 20 searches for a document based on the received search information (step S4), and transfers it to the client terminal 10 (step S5). The sent search result document is displayed (step S6).

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the principle of the present invention. The client terminal 10 has a document input unit 11 and a search information extraction unit 12. The document input means 11 is for inputting a part or all of a document to be searched. The search information extracting means 12 extracts search information from the input document information.

[0008] The server 20 has a search information storage unit 21, a document storage unit 22, and a coincidence determination unit 23. The search information storage unit 21 stores search information received from the client terminal 10. The document storage means 22 stores and stores a plurality of documents to be searched.
The match determining means 23 matches the character code portions (or bitmap information) of the plurality of document information with the character code portions (or bitmap information) of the search information, and determines the degree of matching.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below. 3 and 4 are system configuration diagrams of the present invention. In particular, FIG. 3 shows a system configuration example of a client terminal, and FIG. 4 shows a system configuration example of a server.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the document search system has a configuration in which a client terminal 10 and a server 20 are connected via a communication network 30. As shown in FIG. 3, the client terminal 10 includes a CPU / memory 110, a document input device 120 such as a camera or a facsimile device for inputting document information as bitmap information, and a document input device. A character recognition mechanism 111 for recognizing a character from the bitmap information input from the CPU 120
A search information storage mechanism 112 for storing a character code string recognized by the character recognition mechanism 111 in the server 10, a communication control device 130 for sending the search information to the communication network 30 and transferring the search information to the server 20, and The display device 140 is configured to display the document information of the search result to be transferred.

[0011] Further, as shown in FIG.
A CPU / memory 210; a document storage device 220 for storing a plurality of document information; and a search character code string storage mechanism in the CPU / memory 210 for storing a character code string which is search information transferred from the client terminal 10. 21
1, a match determination mechanism 212 that also determines the match between the search information in the CPU memory 210 and the document information stored in the document storage device 220, and determines a match in the CPU memory 210 The file name storage mechanism 213 for storing the file name of the document information searched by the mechanism 212 and the search information received from the client terminal 10 and the document information specified by the file name stored in the file name storage mechanism 213 are stored. It comprises a communication control device 230 for transferring to the client terminal 10.

The operation of the above configuration will be described. FIG. 5 (A)
5 is a flowchart showing an outline of processing in the client terminal 10 of the present invention.

In step S11, a copy of a document to be searched is input from the document input device 120 as bitmap information. In step S12, the document input device 120
The character recognition mechanism 111 in the CPU / memory 110 performs character recognition with image shaping processing such as noise elimination and tilt correction as preprocessing on the bitmap information input from. For the specific processing method of character recognition, for example, use the technique shown in Hagita et al., "Kanji Character Identification Using External Direction Contribution Features" (IEICE Transactions on Electronics, Vol.J66-D, No.10, 1983) This is achieved by: A generally used character recognition technology may be used.

In step S13, the character recognition mechanism 111
Are sequentially stored in the search information storage mechanism 112. In step S14, it is determined whether the processing for all the characters included in the input bitmap information has been completed.
12 to S14 are repeated.

In step S15, when the processing for all the characters included in the input bitmap information is completed, the search information stored in the search information storage mechanism 112 is transferred from the communication control device 130 to the server 20.

In step S16, reception of the search result from the server 20 is waited. When the search result document is received, the search document is displayed on the display device 140 in step S17.

FIG. 5B is a flowchart showing an outline of the processing in the server 20 of the present invention. Step S
21, the communication control device 230 causes the client terminal 1
0 from the CPU / memory 210
Is stored in the search character code string storage mechanism 211.

In step S22, one piece of document information is read from the document storage device 220 storing a plurality of pieces of document information to the CPU / memory 210. In step S23, a match determination process is performed on the read document by the match determination module 212 based on the search information stored in the search character code string storage module 211. The specific processing method for judging the match is, for example, by using the technique described in Miyahara et al., "Full-text search using SIMD-type parallel processor" (Information Processing Society of Japan, Vol.33 No.3, 1992). Realize.

The technique of "full-text search using a SIMD-type parallel processor" realizes a high-speed full-text search function using a SIMD-type two-dimensional array processor and a host computer (personal computer). A program and document data are loaded, and a search can be performed by inputting a search word and a search condition as needed. A bit-serial processing method using horizontal storage of document data is adopted. In the partial match search, the permissible character matching and the wildcard matching within a word can be searched at almost the same speed as the full-text matching and the narrowing matching, respectively. of course,
The match determination process in step S23 is not limited to this method, but may use a search unit or the like using a normal single processor.

In step S24, the result of the matching determination process is checked. If not, the process returns to step S22 to repeat the process for the next document. In step S25, when a match is determined by the match determination unit 212, the file name of the document is stored in the file name storage unit 2.
13 is stored.

In step S26, the document information specified by the file name stored in the file name storage mechanism 213 as the search result is transferred from the communication control device 230 to the client terminal 10.

As described above, in this embodiment, an example has been described in which a document is searched using a character code extracted from bitmap information. However, the input bitmap information itself is cut out, and a graphic is used as a key. It is also possible to search for the corresponding document information by matching the information to be searched with processing and image processing techniques. At this time, it is not always necessary to match even if the size is large, but it is sufficient if they are similar. For this reason, if necessary, conversion such as enlargement or reduction is performed on the bitmap information as search information, and a match is checked. When extracting a specific area from the input bitmap information as search information, for example, display the input bitmap information on a display device, and allow the user to specify the area interactively in the display. Can be.

Also, in the present embodiment, one document is searched for, and the accuracy of character recognition is not described.
Since it is rare to be able to recognize 00%, if a certain degree of recognition accuracy can be ensured, a plurality of candidate documents may be presented to make the user judge. For example, if more than half of the number of characters to be recognized can be recognized, the document searched for the recognized part is presented to the user as a candidate document, and the document information that the user wants to know the details from among the plurality of candidate documents is displayed. You may make a user select.

It is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to the examples described above, but can be variously modified and applied within the scope of the technology described in each claim in the claims.

[0025]

As described above, according to the document search method and system of the present invention, the file name and keyword of a large amount of stored document information are unknown,
Even if you forget, if it is part of a copy of a paper-based document, you can not only search the stored electronic data,
It is possible to perform a search using a figure as a key, which is not possible with the conventional search means using full text search.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the principle of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a principle configuration diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system configuration of a client terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a system configuration example of a server according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an outline of processing of a client terminal and a server of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 10 client terminal 110 CPU / memory (in client terminal) 111 character recognition mechanism (in CPU / memory) 112 search information storage mechanism (in CPU / memory) 120 document input device (in client terminal) 130 (client terminal) Communication controller 140 (in client terminal) Display device 20 (in client terminal) 20 Server 210 CPU memory (in server) 211 Character code string storage mechanism (in CPU / memory) 212 Match (in CPU / memory) Judgment mechanism 213 File name storage mechanism (in CPU / memory) 220 Document storage device (in server) 230 Communication control device (in server) 30 Communication network

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Teruo Akiyama 3-19-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A document search method for searching document information stored in a server in accordance with an instruction from a client terminal in a server / client system, wherein a part or all of a document to be searched is input from a client terminal. Search information is extracted from the input document information, and a document including contents matching the extracted search information is searched from a plurality of pieces of document information stored in the server, and the searched document information is retrieved. A document search method characterized by displaying on a client terminal. 2. A part or all of a document to be searched is input as bitmap information from a client terminal, a character part is recognized from the bitmap information, converted into a character code string, and stored in a server as a character code. 2. The document search method according to claim 1, further comprising searching and displaying document information including a matching character code string from the plurality of pieces of document information. 3. A part or all of a document to be searched is input as bitmap information from a client terminal, and part or all of the bitmap information from the document information stored in the server is similar to each other. 2. The document search method according to claim 1, wherein document information including image information is searched and displayed. 4. A document retrieval system comprising: a client terminal for designating document information to be retrieved; and a server for storing a plurality of document information and retrieving specific document information in accordance with an instruction from the client terminal. A client terminal for inputting part or all of the document information to be searched as bitmap information;
A character recognition unit that cuts out a character portion from the bitmap information and converts it into a character code, a search information storage unit that stores a character code string whose character has been recognized, a transfer unit that transfers the search information to the server, Document display means for displaying document information as a search result transferred from a server, wherein the server has a document storage means for storing a plurality of document information, and a reception means for receiving search information from the client terminal Character code string storage means for storing a character code string which is received search information; character code portions of a plurality of document information stored in the document storage means; and stored in the search character code string storage means. A match judging unit for judging a degree of the coincidence with the character code set, and an output of the match judging unit, the data being stored in the document storing unit. File name storage means for storing the file name of specific document information from several pieces of document information, and when the matching determination of all documents stored in the document storage means is completed, the file name is stored in the file name storage means. Transfer means for transferring document information specified by a file name to the client terminal. 5. A document retrieval system comprising: a client terminal for designating document information to be retrieved; and a server for storing a plurality of document information and retrieving specific document information in accordance with an instruction from the client terminal. A client terminal for inputting part or all of the document information to be searched as bitmap information;
Area extraction means for extracting a specific area from the bitmap information as search information, search information storage means for storing bitmap information as the extracted search information, transfer means for transferring the search information to the server, Document display means for displaying document information as a search result transferred from the server, wherein the server has a document storage means for storing a plurality of document information; and a reception means for receiving search information from the client terminal. Means, search bitmap information storage means for storing bitmap information as received search information, and a part of bitmap information cut out from a plurality of pieces of document information stored in the document storage means. The converted bitmap information is subjected to conversion such as scaling, and the bitmap information stored in the search bitmap information storage means is stored. And a file for storing a file name of specific document information from a plurality of pieces of document information stored in the document storage unit, based on an output of the match determination unit. Name storage means, and transfer means for transferring, to the client terminal, document information specified by the file name stored in the file name storage means when the match determination of all documents stored in the document storage means is completed. And a document search system comprising: